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City council would make better decisions and have better informed politicians if it hired an extra research aide for every councillor, says a conservative think-tank. The Manning Foundation used word counts and agenda page counts to conclude that Calgary councillors have excessive workloads. The average biweekly meeting agenda would take 18.5 hours to read in full, states a report released Wednesday.

Canada turns 147 on Tuesday, with barbecues and fireworks being prepared for celebration from coast to coast to coast. Here are 10 ways Calgary has helped make Canada one of the best countries on the planet. 1. The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth

In its first three decades, Calgary had been devastated by fire and rebuilt. It thrilled royalty with its first cowboy extravaganza, the Stampede, and hosted a world title fight that ended with one dead boxer. Yet, nothing prepared Calgarians for the frenzied scenes in the spring of 1914.

OTTAWA — One is a left-wing academic from the West Coast, the kind of oilsands industry-unfriendly elite Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives tend to view with contempt. The other is a Saskatchewan farmer, fervently anti-abortion and a skeptic of climate change science.

Calgary is home to a foundation that hosts Canada’s most prestigious national innovation awards — the Ernest C. Manning Awards. The foundation, established in 1980 by a group of Canadian business leaders led by the late David E. Mitchell, is named after former Premier Ernest Manning.

While the identity of Calgary’s 2013-2017 mayor after Monday is in little doubt, it’s less certain whether he’ll be working with a status quo council or have to deal with a conservative mini-revolution. In addition to new councillors elected in Wards 1 and 2, several inner-city aldermen are expected to have tough fights for their jobs tonight.

Traffic congestion and housing affordability are Calgarians’ biggest civic concerns this year but the accountability of the city’s elected members is increasingly a worry for the city’s residents, a survey shows. Voters should soon be able to keep a closer watch on their representatives though, through an online tracking system of councillors’ performances created by the Manning Foundation.

The founding father of the Reform party says Canadian citizens would benefit from legislation that better defines the economic and political role of municipal governments. Preston Manning said federal and provincial legislation is, with a few exceptions regarding taxation and debt, so broadly defined that municipal governments are prone to defining their own role and setting vague policies contrary to economic theory, and sometimes against the will of the general public.

After hammering away last week at suburban home builders’ bid to fund the campaigns of industry-friendly council candidates, Mayor Naheed Nenshi is trying to parlay the controversy into a money-maker of his own. The mayor’s re-election campaign has sent supporters an online appeal for donations with the title “Naheed needs your help!” In it, fundraising chairman Brian Thiessen said the leaked video of Shane Homes CEO Cal Wenzel that came out last week indicates that some development executives are “specifically trying to elect a council that will thwart the mayor’s agenda — your agenda for a Calgary that’s even better.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi challenged deep-pocketed opponents to take a direct run at him instead of supporting ward candidates as a “proxy” against him. Reporters weren’t let into the mayor’s $450-a-plate fundraiser Wednesday, but interviews with attendees and Twitter posts from people inside shed some light on his first 2013 campaign speech.

Ralph Klein’s bold revolution changed the course of Alberta politics and had a major impact across the country, shifting the political landscape firmly to the right and opening the door for the election of the Harper government.

The Preston Manning think tank’s mission to make city halls across Canada more conservative has begun in Calgary, with a clutch of candidates trying to win in October’s ward races. The Reform party founder’s Manning Centre for Building Democracy has launched a foray into municipal politics — in a realm where candidates and voters have tended to resist ideological branding, and in a city that embraces conservatives federally and provincially but far less so at the civic level.

CALGARY — Conservative governments may reign supreme in Canada and Alberta, but Preston Manning figures everyone can use a little help sometimes. On Wednesday, the former Reform party leader officially opened the Manning Centre For Building Democracy in Calgary — a “school of practical politics” — for those on the right side of the political spectrum.

He was a champion of arts and culture, a defender of Alberta’s oil interests on Parliament Hill and protector of the province’s wealth through the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Those aren’t the reasons, though, why Dawn Wheatland has come out early Friday morning to celebrate the life of the greatest Canadian premier of the past 40 years.

Another group of deserving Calgarians received the Diamond Jubilee Medal in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. Winners, including former politician Preston Manning, Crazy Canuck Ken Read and Dr. Roger Jackson, received the honour from lieutenant-governor Donald S. Ethell on Tuesday at a ceremony.

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